Editor's Note Adding oral antibiotics to mechanical bowel preparation for left colorectal cancer surgery significantly lowered the rate of surgical site infections (SSIs), but the effect was marginal in right-colon resections, this study finds. For 89 patients having left colorectal resections, the rate of SSIs was 27% with mechanical bowel…

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  Editor's Note In this study from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, patients with penicillin allergies had a 50% increased odds of developing surgical site infections (SSIs), which the researchers attributed to the second-line antibiotics administered to them.  A total of 8,385 patients who had surgery between 2010 and 2014…

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Editor's Note Surgical patients who received antibiotic prophylaxis before low-risk procedures did not have an increased risk for postoperative antibiotic-resistant infections, this study finds. Of 22,138 patients included in the analysis, 689 developed an infection within 30 days after surgery. Of these, 550 (80%) had received antibiotic prophylaxis, and 338…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on October 4 that it is deleting element of performance (EP) 3 for Medication Management 09.01.01 for hospitals and critical access hospitals, effective October 1. The standard states: “The [critical access] hospital educates patients, and their families as needed, regarding the appropriate use of…

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Editor's Note A risk-assessment system designed to avoid harm in private industry (ie, Socio-Technical Probabilistic Risk Assessment [ST-PRA]), was used by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)-funded researchers to identify practices likely to pose infection risks in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). The ST-PRA ranks failure points (events) according to…

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Editor's Note When colorectal surgical patients, who were given a single dose of antibiotic before surgery and re-dosing if the procedure lasted longer, were compared to patients given additional antibiotics for 24 hours postoperatively, infection rates were identical, this study finds. A total of 965 patients were included in this…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on July 26 issued a new report titled “Antibiotic Use in the United States, 2017: Progress and Opportunities.” The report includes information on the current status of antibiotic use in healthcare settings, highlighting programs and resources to support antibiotic stewardship (ie,…

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Editor's Note Managing appendicitis with antibiotics on an outpatient basis shows promise as a safe, effective, lower-cost alternative to surgery, this study finds. Of 30 patients involved in the trial, 15 were randomized to antibiotics and 14 to appendectomy. A total of 14 patients in the antibiotic group were discharged from…

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Editor's Note A team of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) biologists have found that combinations of three different antibiotics can overcome a bacteria’s resistance, even when none of the three on its own or two together is effective, the February 7 UCLA Newsroom reports. The biologists created a mathematical…

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Editor's Note This study from the UK is the first to link antibiotic resistance with exposure to the disinfectant chlorhexidine. In five of six strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae exposed to chlorhexidine-containing disinfectants in the laboratory, adaptation to chlorhexidine led to resistance to the last resort antibiotic colistin. The risk of…

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